A Telegram From the Oval Office
Nobody , produced by
Bob Squier of Squier, Knapp & Ochs for the Clinton campaign.
Title demonstrates
how far the Clinton/Gore campaign has come: In the wake of the 1994 election,
who could have imagined a 1996 Clinton commercial in which a tracking shot of
the empty Oval Office is paired with a narrator asking who really belongs
there? The answer, in 1994, would have been Anyone But Clinton.
A negative spot that touches
on many issues, Title casts the attack in a seemingly high-minded
context by imagining Dole behind the mahogany of the president's desk. To make
certain that the viewer catches the negative ad's drift, double-exposed over
the scene is a shot of a pallid, black-and-white Dole and a grimacing
Gingrich.
And once again, the Dole tax
cut is attacked without being called a tax cut. (Tax cuts are too popular to
attack.) Instead, Dole's 15 percent tax cut is a "risky $550 billion plan."
This description makes Dole's proposal sound more like an old Democrats'
big-spending program than a tax cut.
Recycling phrases and images
from earlier ads, the spot moves at light speed from campaign issue to campaign
issue: deficits, education, and drug cuts, abortion, interest rates, and harm
to the economy. Meanwhile, double-exposed images of kids, a woman, and the
signs (literally) of a failing economy fill the screen, all punctuated by the
grim visage of Bob Dole. (Some critics wonder if Clinton's spots pack in too
many poll-driven buzz words for viewers to absorb.)
Title asks, Where do
you stand? Do you want Bob Dole in the Oval Office? This is the post-Cold War
equivalent of asking whose finger you want on the nuclear button. With a swift
pivot, the spot supplies its own answer as a smiling Bill Clinton is captured
striding down a White House passageway toward the Oval Office, where he
presumably belongs. Title-- surely Dick Morris' last contribution to the
campaign--presents Clinton as both a budget balancer and as a tax cutter. As in
an earlier
Clinton spot, tax cuts are associated with the president and never with
Dole.
The spot ends with a dash of
triangulation: Clinton must defeat Dole to keep the Gingrich Congress at bay, a
bit of demonization that may help congressional Democrats. The tracking shot of
the empty Oval Office is reprised, and the spot states that voters must decide
whether it will be occupied by the presidential Clinton or the throwback
Dole.
Make sure
to read the credits, which research shows viewers rarely do. This is the last
ad of "The Clinton/Gore Primary Campaign." Dole ran out of primary money months
ago and now, as the general election begins, both candidates are on equal
financial footing. Stay tuned to see what they're trying to do to your
heads.
--Robert
Shrum
